Released in 2017, the game is a single-screen climbing gauntlet built around one simple idea: you control a man in a cauldron using only a hammer, and you climb a mountain made of awkward, irregular objects. It was created by Bennett Foddy and is available across PC (including Steam) as well as mobile on iOS and Android.
As a speedgame, it works because the inputs are minimal but the movement is deep. Every run is an attempt to convert clean hammer placements into momentum, stable landings, and fast transitions between the game’s major “rooms” without giving time back to hesitation or recovery. The route itself is mostly consistent because the mountain is always the same, but the physics-driven interactions make each attempt feel fragile: a single imperfect push can cause a slide or a fall that forces the runner to improvise. That blend of repeatable structure and ever-present risk is why attempts reset quickly and why successful runs look like sustained execution rather than a memorized script.
What makes these runs distinct from speedruns of more traditional platformers is the absence of checkpoints, levels, or discrete challenges. The whole game is one continuous climb, so speed is inseparable from composure. A typical full-game run is optimizing not only the fastest lines upward, but also the safest ways to preserve progress when something goes wrong. On Speedrun.com, the scene’s headline categories emphasize different philosophies of that climb, including a “Glitchless” style and a “Snake” category associated with more aggressive technique allowances, each reflecting a different answer to the same core question: how much risk and movement tech can you harness before the mountain takes everything back.
The speedrunning scene for this game formed almost immediately around the simplest possible objective: complete the climb and trigger the ending sequence as fast as your hammer control would allow. Early record-keeping lived where the game’s audience already was, in shared video uploads and stream VODs, and in community hubs where fast completions could be compared and discussed. Threads in Reddit communities like r/speedrun show how quickly the run became a “watch this” challenge, with viewers treating rapid clears as a legitimate record chase rather than just a novelty stunt.
As those videos accumulated, Speedrun.com became the structured public record, and the earliest “standard” goal settled into full-game completion with clear timing conventions. Community rule posts describe timing anchored to visible, repeatable cues, starting after the initial loading sequence and ending on the final completion screen, with the in-game timer serving as the baseline for comparison. The same posts also show why early rules had to be explicit: updates to the game affected how runners interacted with credits and pausing, and the community responded by tightening what counted as a continuous, valid attempt.
Category identity also clarified early, especially as signature route ideas became formalized into leaderboard definitions. A key example is Snake%, which was added as a distinct leaderboard with a simple requirement that matched what runners were already experimenting with: you must ride the snake once and still finish the game, and the category explicitly disallowed glitches. Even at that stage, you can see the scene maturing into a “document the craft” culture, with split files and tools being shared alongside category announcements so runners could measure and iterate on the same route language.
Getting Over It runners organized the way many modern single-game scenes do: fast completions first circulated through uploaded videos and livestreams, and then the serious comparison work moved to a central leaderboard that could standardize categories and rules. Speedrun.com became the public record for the game, hosting the full-game boards, rule displays, forums, guides, and a resources library in one place, which gave the community a shared reference point for what counts as an official run and how it should be measured.
As discussion matured, conversation naturally split by medium. Quick reactions and run culture lived in places like Twitch chat and YouTube comments, while more technical problem-solving shifted toward persistent threads and chat rooms. The game’s dedicated Discord server became a practical hub for route talk, practice questions, and community announcements, with invites and server pointers circulating through the game’s forum space. In parallel, documentation stayed visible because Speedrun.com also supports guides and a curated resources section, where tools and mods are cataloged and version compatibility is emphasized, which helps preserve knowledge beyond fleeting chat messages.
Verification culture is built around clear evidence and repeatable standards. Runs are typically submitted directly through the leaderboard interface, then reviewed by game moderators, and the community has explicit expectations about what a complete recording should show. In practice, that means a continuous video from the run’s defined start cue to its defined end screen, plus adherence to the board’s mod policy, which for this game has been spelled out in rule and announcement posts to keep comparisons consistent across submissions. Speedrun.com’s broader site rules reinforce the norms behind that process, including prohibitions on falsified runs and guidance around acceptable submission content. When verification takes time, the site’s own guidance frames it as normal moderation workflow, with moderators given a window to review pending runs before a submitter is expected to escalate questions directly.
On the main full game boards hosted at Speedrun.com, the category identity is intentionally compact. The two headline categories are Glitchless and Snake, with runs submitted on PC, Android, and iOS and the platform shown alongside the time on the leaderboard. In practice, that means the community’s “mainline” competition is framed around two different approaches to the same climb: a Glitchless completion route, and a Snake route where the defining requirement is that the runner must ride the snake at least once before finishing the game.
Timing is built around in game time rather than real time. Runs start after beginning a New Game and reaching the point where the game loads you in, and modern rules also recognize a restart hotkey workflow for attempts that reset frequently. The finish is anchored to the endgame screen, which is the visual cue used to determine completion time and keep submissions comparable.
Several “big rule decisions” keep the boards consistent and verifiable. Full game runs are expected to be continuous attempts without pauses or quit outs, with an explicit exception carved out for iOS when pausing is only used to skip credits. Major warp style exploits are treated as out of bounds for these leaderboards, with the Barrel Glitch and related warp glitches explicitly disallowed in the published rules language. The submission standard also expects clear video from a reliable capture source, a readable end screen, and an unobstructed view of the character, cauldron, and hammer interactions so moderators can validate key moments.
The game’s mod policy is written to preserve fairness while recognizing how the community actually records and practices. The rules have allowed specific non intrusive cosmetic changes within limits, permitted certain in game timer tooling, and later expanded to allow multiplayer mod use as long as other players are not interfering with the runner’s attempt. In other words, the leaderboard culture is to keep gameplay impact tightly controlled while giving runners room to use quality of life tools and cosmetic presentation that do not change the physics of the climb.
Outside the main full game boards, the community also maintains Category Extensions for additional and often more experimental rule sets. Those extension pages include categories such as Any% alongside various challenge or meme style boards, which lets the scene support creativity without redefining what the primary records mean.
The speedrun of Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy matured in a way that fits its physics driven climb. Early progress came from simply learning which object interactions were stable and which ones were traps, then shrinking the “decision time” between those interactions. Over time, the route became less about finding a secret path and more about chaining reliable placements, keeping momentum, and minimizing the number of resets caused by a single misread swing. As runners repeated the same rooms thousands of times, the community vocabulary solidified around recognizable maneuvers and repeatable problem areas, which is why the guide library reads like a map of the mountain’s hardest chokepoints.
A major theme in the scene’s evolution is how it treated glitches and warps. There were physics exploits that could skip large portions of the climb, including a “barrel” style warp, but the competitive focus stayed centered on full completion movement rather than unreliable map breaking. The leaderboards ultimately codified that identity by disallowing barrel and warp glitches, reinforcing a culture where the “fastest run” is still a run built on hammer control and room to room execution. The game itself also changed around the edges, with the developer acknowledging that the physics warp exploit had been fixed, which pushed the community even further toward routes that win on consistency instead of exploitation.
As the technical ceiling rose, knowledge preservation shifted from oral tradition to tooling and documentation. On the technique side, runners increasingly separated the run into named skills that could be drilled in isolation, with community guides covering staples like the bucket jump, hat jump, orange hell approaches, and skips tied to specific structures on the climb. On the tooling side, practice and analysis became easier because the scene maintained a shared set of mods and utilities, including modpacks that enable training friendly features and custom configurations, plus tools that support experimentation like TAS related resources.
Timing and measurement also professionalized. Instead of relying only on manual splitting and human judgment, runners adopted autosplitters distributed through Speedrun.com, including a LiveSplit One solution designed around consistent per frame memory reads of player position, game time, and game state. That tooling did more than save convenience. It helped standardize attempts, reduce timing friction, and keep the focus on what the best runs are always optimizing in this game: clean movement, controlled risk, and uninterrupted upward flow.
One of the earliest milestones for Getting Over It as a speedgame was the shift from “impressive clear” clips into a scene with a shared public record. Once the game’s leaderboards stabilized on Speedrun.com, runners could compare like with like: defined categories, visible platform labeling, and a persistent archive of runs and submission dates. That consolidation mattered as much as any individual time barrier because it turned the climb into a repeatable competitive format rather than a series of one-off feats.
A watershed visibility moment came when the game appeared on Games Done Quick, where the run’s tension, speed, and volatility translated perfectly to a live audience. At Summer Games Done Quick 2018, a Glitchless% showcase put the game in front of viewers who might never grind a physics climber themselves, but could instantly understand the stakes of every risky push and every near-save. That kind of stage doesn’t just spotlight a category; it pressures the community to be clear about rules, presentation, and what “clean” execution looks like when everyone is watching.
Another lasting milestone was the scene’s move from informal “tips” into durable documentation. When comprehensive guides began circulating for signature bottlenecks like the bucket jump, hat jump, and Orange Hell, the game’s learning curve changed. Instead of knowledge living only in streams and chat, runners could point newcomers to a shared technical language and a standardized set of safer setups, faster patterns, and recovery ideas. That guide culture helped make runs more consistent, not just faster.
Tooling became its own milestone because it strengthened measurement and practice. Autosplitters and curated resource packs reduced friction for new runners and made timing more consistent across attempts, while also signaling that the community cared about repeatable standards rather than “close enough” hand timing. Even small improvements, like more reliable access to game state and in-game time, nudged the scene toward cleaner verification and better iteration.
A different kind of milestone came from TAS and analysis culture. The presence of a TAS-making tool in the community’s resource library, along with open discussion about how TAS runs were produced, gave runners a way to think about the climb beyond human consistency. Even when TAS work is not the competitive target, it can reshape what players believe is possible, highlight unusual lines, and inspire technique experiments that eventually become practical in real-time runs.
Finally, the game’s speedrunning identity benefited from a relatively unified cross-platform presence. With PC, Android, and iOS runs appearing under the same umbrella and clearly labeled by platform, the community could compare performances while still acknowledging that input method and device differences shape execution. That balance—shared standards with transparent context—helped the scene remain cohesive even as the player base spread across platforms.
OyamaTakeshi – Glitchless – 0:58.326 – July 2025 (Speedrun.com lists “7 months ago”) – PC – A benchmark for the modern sub-minute era, where success is built on repeatable, high-precision swings and minimizing “reset moments” without losing pace
Blastbolt – Glitchless – 0:59.885 – February 2024 (Speedrun.com lists “2 years ago”) – PC – An important early sub-minute mark that helped define what “fast but still stable” looked like for the category’s route skeleton
leviathangoi – Glitchless – 1:00.475 – February 2024 (Speedrun.com lists “2 years ago”) – PC – A classic “doorstep” time that captures the transition into consistent near-sub-minute pacing, where every small recovery choice matters
Yeet1 – Glitchless – 1:02.893 – February 2022 (Speedrun.com lists “4 years ago”) – PC – Representative of the earlier low-1:0x era before later refinements compressed the end-to-end route into sub-minute territory
GanDelioer – Glitchless – 1:05.945 – June 2025 (Speedrun.com lists “8 months ago”) – iOS – A notable mobile-category performance, showing how top-level execution can translate even with different control feel and consistency challenges
Lumonen – Glitchless – 2:16.125 – February 2018 (Speedrun.com lists “8 years ago”) – PC – An early-era run that helps anchor how dramatically the standard route and execution expectations tightened over time
Wenderer – Snake – 1:50.246 – August 2025 (Speedrun.com lists “6 months ago”) – PC – A defining modern Snake-category benchmark that reflects the category’s mature “fast but controlled” rhythm and reduced waste time
Tendou_Kisara – Snake – 1:53.402 – February 2025 (Speedrun.com lists “1 year ago”) – PC – A historically meaningful sub-2-minute performance that shows the category’s optimized core route and the importance of clean transitions
Sen – Snake – 3:29.679 – February 2019 (Speedrun.com lists “7 years ago”) – PC – A strong example from an earlier Snake era, useful for illustrating how later route cleanups and risk management pulled times down by minutes
Lockness06 – Snake – 4:12.001 – February 2018 (Speedrun.com lists “8 years ago”) – PC – An early obsolete record-era run that captures the category’s formative pace and the community’s early “proof of what’s possible” benchmarks
Bennett Foddy. Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. Steam store page. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://store.steampowered.com/app/240720/Getting_Over_It_with_Bennett_Foddy/
Steam Community. “[Updated Jan 6 2022] Version 1.7 is LIVE.” Posted December 18, 2017; last updated January 6, 2022. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://steamcommunity.com/app/240720/discussions/0/2549465882934520838/
Speedrun.com. “Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy” (game hub and full-game leaderboards). Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.speedrun.com/goiwbf
Speedrun.com. “Rule changes to both glitchless and snake%.” Forum post, February 2, 2018. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.speedrun.com/goiwbf/forums/bty9q
Speedrun.com. “Updates to game rules!” Forum thread. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.speedrun.com/goiwbf/forums/wudze
Speedrun.com. “Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy” (Guides index). Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.speedrun.com/goiwbf/guides
Speedrun.com. Zenobiyl. “Complete Orange Hell Guide for Speedrunners and Casuals.” Guide page. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.speedrun.com/goiwbf/guides/0ez24
Speedrun.com. OyamaTakeshi. “Glitchless in 0:58.326.” Run page. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.speedrun.com/goiwbf/runs/zx0o25ez
YouTube. OyamaTakeshi. “Getting Over It 58秒326 世界記録.” Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOL4sc-zuic
YouTube. Blastbolt. “Getting Over It Speedrun World Record in 59.885s.” Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb8yNvIrn8Q
Games Done Quick. “Run Index, Summer Games Done Quick 2018.” Accessed February 12, 2026. https://tracker.gamesdonequick.com/tracker/runs/sgdq2018
YouTube. MONTYvsTHEWORLD. “Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (SGDQ 2018) Glitchless%.” Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fMMBMWiiSA
Wood, Austin. “QWOP successor Getting Over It is now available on Steam.” PC Gamer, December 6, 2017. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.pcgamer.com/qwop-successor-getting-over-it-is-now-available-on-steam/
Rogers, Tim. “Getting Over It Is A Game About Using A Sledgehammer To Climb A Mountain.” Kotaku, October 6, 2017. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://kotaku.com/getting-over-it-is-a-game-about-using-a-sledgehammer-to-1819219469
Muncy, Julie. “The Guy Who Made ‘QWOP’ Is Back To Infuriate You All Over Again.” Wired, January 8, 2018. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/getting-over-it-bennett-foddy/
TouchArcade. “‘Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy’ Released on Android by Noodlecake.” April 25, 2018. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://toucharcade.com/2018/04/25/getting-over-it-with-bennett-foddy-released-on-android-by-noodlecake/
Reddit. “Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy in 58.326 by OyamaTakeshi.” r/GettingOverItGame post. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.reddit.com/r/GettingOverItGame/comments/1l9xulw/getting_over_it_with_bennett_foddy_in_58326_by/
Reddit. “[WR] Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy in 1:02.893 … by Yeet1.” r/speedrun post. Accessed February 12, 2026. https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/qqk7x3/wr_getting_over_it_with_bennett_foddy_in_102893/
Wikipedia. “Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy.” Accessed February 12, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Over_It_with_Bennett_Foddy